If you're playing the Legacy version of the mod, you'll quickly come to realise that for many factions, there's a huge assortment of units that you can potentially hire. Furthermore, you'll likely have sufficient positive alignment with multiple factions to hire their troops, too. All of this choice can beg the question: which units to hire?
Pledging[]
If you haven't already, consider pledging to your favourite faction. This will give you a discount on hiring their soldiers, give you access to all their units, and enable you to conquer enemy lands when you kill enemy NPC's.
What's the army's job?[]
To kill enemies. Duh.
But be more specific: what exactly are your soldiers meant to do? Are you looking for a few bodyguards to keep you safe in friendly territory? Are you trying to defend against an invasion? Are you trying to conquer enemy lands? Or are you fighting another player, whether that be laying siege to their fortress or defending against their attack?
Bodyguards[]
The goal of hiring bodyguards is not to kill as many enemies as possible, or to conquer enemy territories. It's to keep you safe. Therefore, this army should be relatively small, and composed of strong units that are jacks-of-all-trades. Cavalry is usually not recommended as it tends to go off unsupported and get itself into trouble. Mixed combat units such as Rangers and Elves are a good choice if you can get them; if not, go for strong melee units, such as Dunlending Berserkers, Gundabad Uruks, or Uruk Berserkers. Consider giving your bodyguards strong weapons and armour to make them as powerful as possible as they're going to be outnumbered most, if not all, the time, and remember to summon them to yourself frequently using a Horn of Command.
Terrain[]
Regardless of the faction, terrain plays a huge factor in how effective an army is.
- In open plains, cavalry or other mounted units are excellent. They get stuck easily in forests or underground, though.
- Infantry are excellent in dense forests or in tight places, but are vulnerable to archers in the mountains, and cavalry in the open.
- Archers are excellent in hilly terrain, as they can knock enemies downhill as they shoot. They can be charged down the cavalry in the open, and aren't especially effective in areas where there's a lot of cover.
- Trolls and other large units are powerful in the open against infantry, but get stuck in tight places easily, and make large targets for archers, especially in the water or the mountains.
- Bombardiers are extremely good at killing large numbers of infantry, but are useless at defense and can be vulnerable to archers.
Fighting an Invasion/Conquering land[]
The best units for fighting an invasion vary depending on what faction you're fighting, and the terrain it's in. Some factions, such as Gundabad, will send hordes of relatively weak units that are easily defeated with strong cavalry. Other factions, such as Angmar, will send mostly weak units, but occasionally pepper their invasions with stronger units like Hill-trolls and Warg Bombardiers. A mix of infantry, cavalry, and archers is recommended in such cases. Still others, such as the Dúnedain, will send strong units only, which can be overwhelmed with large numbers of cheap but weak units.
The tactics for conquering enemy lands are similar to those for fighting an invasion, as the units the faction will use are identical.
Base defense[]
For defending a hilltop base against normal enemy spawns, a good setup is to have archers in guard mode near the outside. Then have a few infantry behind the archers -- also in guard mode -- to keep the archers safe from melee units that slip through. If your base is in dense forest or at the bottom of a valley, skip the archers altogether and go with melee units only.
Fighting a player[]
Of all combat scenarios, this one is the hardest to give advice for, as each player will have different combat preferences. Let's pretend we have a Gondorian player defending a fortress against a Mordorian player:
- Mordor attacks with a huge horde of cheap but weak orcs, wargs, and archers. The best defense here is to mount a cavalry charge with Swan Knights, with archers providing cover fire closer to the fortress.
- Mordor attacks with Warg Bombardiers, followed by a smaller number of very strong Olog-hai. A cavalry charge here would be fatal. Here, the best defense would be to use archers -- as many of them as possible to keep the units at a distance.
- Mordor attacks with a moderate number of Black Uruks and Black Uruk Archers. Archers here are probably not the best defense as they tend to be slow at killing units. As each NPC can only target one enemy at a time, the best strategy may be to hire as many cheap Levymen and soldiers as possible in order to try and overwhelm the attackers with sheer numbers.
The best strategy is to figure out what kind of units and strategies this player likes to use for attack or defense and to hire units strong against that. If you have friends online or IRL, they may be able to act as your spies and leave hints.